[RPG] dodge if I don’t have the initiative

werewolf-the-apocalypseworld-of-darkness

It seems every World of Darkness game from the Revised edition allows defensive actions at any point of turn, even if you don't have initiative. I have read it in Vampire: the Masquerade, Mage: the Ascension, Demon: the Fallen, Dark Ages: Vampire and Hunter: the Reckoning. But Werewolf: the Apocalypse is strangely silent at this point.

In W20, you can find references to the Willpower roll for aborting an action to a defensive action, but it is never explained.

I know people that say that means in W:tA you just can't dodge out of your initiative order. What do you think? Do you have any official text supporting one or another interpretation?

Best Answer

The first thing to do is dispense with the idea of "dodging outside of your Initiative order." The only time you'd need to dodge is outside of your Initiative order, since if you're dodging, you're not the acting party. What's most often being referred to in those circumstances is "dodging when you don't have an action dedicated to defense." In those cases, you can make a Willpower roll (or spend a Willpower) to change a previously declared action to a "dodge." (The combat system, remember, presumes that you'll assign actions in Initiative order and resolve them in reverse order. In a forum, you may not be using that rule.)

In Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary, the use of Willpower to convert a previously declared action into a defense is on page 289.

In Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised, aborting to a dodge has no cost, as per page 205 and 206. "A character can choose to take one of three defensive actions as well. She may also choose to abort a previously declared action in order to do so.[…] Normally, once a player has declared an action, she may not change it. If she has a good reason to do so (a packmate kills her character’s intended target, for example) she may change her action, but she adds one to the difficulty. Aborting to a defensive action does not change the difficulty of said action.")

Now, if you have no more actions left in your turn to spend, you have nothing to abort or change and may not dodge. This is a very good reason to spend Rage on extra actions at the start of your turn.

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